9 months old

I haven't taken a proper 9-month photo of Neko, so I'll post his 8-month picture and talk about the past two months.

In the past couple of months we've had two visits from grandparents. My mom came out to help out with parent-teacher conferences. Aaron's parents came out the following week, which was our spring break. Unfortunately, Neko was sick while they were here, but it was still wonderful for him to see them and to be home with us for a week. We missed him a lot last Monday when we all went back to school. It's always hard for us to go back after a break. Aaron kept saying how much he missed him all day.

I was initially nervous about leaving Neko with my mom, (even though Aaron sarcastically reminded me that she has actually had children), mainly because we just haven't left him with anyone in the evening. It was a super long day, but it went great. We came home to Nirvana blasting on Grandma Terry's iPad, and Neko happily rocking out and playing on the living room floor.

Grandma Terry also bought Neko his first Cabbage Patch doll, Diego. We named him Diego because he's ethnically ambiguous and deserved an ethnic-sounding name. Neko adores Diego. He sleeps with him most nights. In fact tonight after Aaron put him in his crib, Neko sat right up looked around for Diego, grabbed him, and talked to him for a while before rubbing his eyes and lying down.

Speaking of talking, he babbles a lot, makes lots of "da da da" sounds but we don't think he really attaches those sounds to anything except maybe the dogs. He definitely points at the dogs and says, "doh," but who knows if he's saying "dog." It's anyone's guess. He's pointing and waving a lot, which is pretty cute too.

He's also been eating "real" food- finger foods. It all started when we were told by the ladies at daycare that, on a trip over to the "big kids' side," he grabbed another kid's green bean and chicken nugget right off the plate and ate them up. The "big kids" are 1-2 years old. He likes going over to that side. Miss Michelle said it's because, "He likes all of the commotion." We're glad that he's a pretty sociable kid who enjoys being out and about. It makes it relatively easy for us to go on little outings and take him places. 

In terms of food, we've been giving him banana and strawberry slices, peas, bits of chicken nuggets, and avocado. He likes pretty much everything. Tonight he had tilapia and asparagus. 

We're pretty happy that we now have an eat-in kitchen because we spend a lot of time in it.

We've also been spending more time in the backyard now that the weather is nice. Neko loves crawling around on the grass. We have to watch him like a hawk- keep those rocks and leaves out of his mouth.

Although he isn't yet walking, he's cruising everywhere and can walk holding onto something, so Aaron bought him a little wooden push toy from Amazon. He pushes it around the house. He can also stand on his own for quite a long time but isn't taking steps without holding onto something.  Seeing him stand on his own is quite amazing to me. He is so strong and getting so big already. He can almost do a pull up on the window sill above our bed.